You'll turn with me now to Luke
chapter 4. Immediately after our Lord's
temptation in the wilderness, He returned in the power of the
Spirit into Galilee. And there went out a fame of
Him through all the region round about. He loved and he ministered to
men. And men loved him for it. They
loved him for it. He wasn't known for building
a big synagogue or a temple or a church. He wasn't known for
any of the things that modern day preachers have gained fame
by. But there went out of fame because
he loved men and ministered to them. He ministered to them. It doesn't take long for wisdom,
for the wisdom and love and kindness of a true minister to be known. It don't take too long. And then it says in verse 15,
he taught in their synagogues being glorified of all. The reason he was glorified of
all is because of the fact that he is the wisdom of God. He could take the word of God
and tell you exactly what it was saying and tell it to you
in a language you could understand. He was glorified of all. And I sat and thought about this
and what a wisdom. And what goodness dropped from
the lips of the Son of God. What He could say with absolute
certainty. And what He could say in absolute
grace. And it just poured from His lips
like drops of oil. I'm going to tell you something,
and these are things that you already know if you know him. Religion is nothing more than
a song and dance. That's all it is. It's a song
and dance. And it's only as good as the
actor who's portraying the part of a preacher. But when God's messenger of grace
steps into the pulpit, And men hear the wisdom of God proclaimed,
the mystery of the ages declared. And he's glorified by those who
hear him. They honor him, and they listen
to him, and they know that he's a messenger from God, because
nobody else dares say those things. And then it says in verse 16,
he came to Nazareth. Now that's Nazareth where he
grew up. Worked in his father's carpenter
shop. As a young man went into the
synagogue and left the priests in the synagogue just amazed
at his knowledge of the scriptures. Left them in awe. So he came
to Nazareth where he'd been brought up. And as his custom was, he
went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for
to read. And it doesn't say that, but
I believe he called for a certain book of the Bible. They were
in scrolls, I believe, in those days. And it was delivered unto
him, the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he'd opened
the book, he found the place where it was written, that is,
Isaiah 61, 1. And here's what he read. He said,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering
of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Now, everybody
in that synagogue had been going to that synagogue since they
were little children. And they knew that this passage
in Isaiah 61 was talking about the Christ that was to come. They knew that that passage was
a messianic prophecy, foretelling the days when the Son of God
would come with these glad tidings and these good news. And so he read these passages,
verse 20, and he closed the book, gave it to the minister of the
synagogue, and he sat down. He didn't say anything. He just
sat down. And the eyes of all them in the
synagogue were fastened on him. They wanted to hear what he had
to say about that wonderful passage in Isaiah 61. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. This day. This day. Now if ever there was
a pure, true, and gracious preacher of the gospel, it was our Lord
Jesus Christ. I've heard men refer to Charles
Spurgeon as the Prince of Preachers. I beg your pardon. Jesus Christ,
it was the Prince of Preachers. He was the preacher's preacher.
And we have our contemporaries and we're told plainly in the
scriptures to mark them as they are examples to us, Philippians
3.17. But even the best of saints couldn't
hold a candle to the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the best, take the best. Everybody has their opinion of
who's the best preacher. I go to these Bible conferences
and I always hear, boy, he's the best. He is the best. And
then they go to the next one, somebody else gets up and they
say, well, there's the best, you know. And I always think
every time I hear a message from somebody, that's the best message
I ever heard. And then the next guy preaches,
you know. Boy, that's the best message
I ever heard. If ever there was a true, pure,
and gracious preacher of the gospel, it was our Lord Jesus
Christ. And nobody else could hold a
candle to Him. But what I want to do this morning
with these scriptures is to look at what God says through Christ that He intends to do. and what he intends to do through
the preaching of the gospel, and then in the light of this,
to find hope for what I have to say and what you have to hear. There's a great similarity to
what took place right here in Luke chapter 4 and what's taking
place here today. When all is said and done here
today, I could look at you and I could say, today is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears as it was in theirs. Now the first thing I want you
to see in these verses is that Christ is revealed here as both
preacher and the gospel. He's both. When we talk about
preaching the gospel, people run immediately over to a Calvinistic
doctrine or they run over to this and they run over to that
and this covenant and that covenant and all of these things. Let
me tell you something. Jesus Christ is the gospel. The gospel
is a person. The doctrine is a description
or a declaration of the person, but the gospel is a person. And
here he both reveals himself as preacher and doctrine. He's both preacher and what he's
going to preach. Now you think about this. He
said, why did he come? What did the Lord say he was
coming for? What did he say he was going to do? He stood up
that day and he read the Word of God to him. I'm going to tell you something.
It doesn't do any good to preach deliverance, pardon, reconciliation,
and redemption without one who's able to accomplish it. Now here's one who could stand
and declare these things, Russell, because he had the ability to
accomplish it. He could say, I can open the
prison door because he could. He could say, I can set the captive
free because He had the power to do it. He could say, I came to preach
to you the acceptable year of the Lord because He was the Lord
of whom the year proclaimed that He would come. It doesn't do any good to preach
deliverance. I listened to people preach deliverance
my whole life, and redemption, and salvation, and talk about
all those things. But nowhere in their preaching
was one who was able to deliver, who was able to save. They preached
a redemption that couldn't redeem. In the end, I still had to pay
the bill. Religion preaches peace where
there is no peace. They preach a redemption that
does not redeem, a salvation that does not save, and a righteousness
which has already been condemned of God. They tell us to will
and to run, but the scripture says it's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth. Religion preaches works of righteousness
by keeping the law, but the scriptures speak of a righteousness of God
without the law. What a useless exercise is preaching
a gospel that's not been accomplished. That's a useless exercise. And it has no one able to accomplish
it. Let me tell you something, the
primary thing in preaching is the revelation of Jesus Christ. You take him out of the picture,
there is no good news. Alright, the second thing I want
you to see here is that our Savior was given the gift of God's Spirit
without measure. Without measure. I can't imagine. I just cannot imagine what it
would be to be possessed of God's Spirit without measure. And no
one but the Son of God could have handled that. In John chapter 3 verse 34 it
said, For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of god now listen to
the or god give it not the spirit by major underhand there is nothing
in his life his conduct his message or his motive to bring any doubt
to any man he said one time to those his
enemies he said uh... Which of you convinces me of
sin? Huh? Boy, it wouldn't take you
long to convince me of it. But he said, which of you can
convince me of it? And nobody had anything to say.
And he said, well, why don't you believe what I'm telling
you then? You see what I'm saying? Oh, my soul. He could say all
that He came to do and He could do all that He came to say. Because He had in Him and upon
Him the sovereign Holy Spirit of God without measure. Thirdly, And I'm gonna tell you
something, if you're here today and you've been dabbling along
in Pentecostalism or tongues and those kind of things and
you're kind of leaning in that direction, let me tell you something.
He possessed the Spirit of God without measure and not one time
in all his ministry did he ever speak in tongues. Now you think
about that. Next time somebody tells you,
why, you don't have the Spirit of God because you're not speaking
in tongues. Neither did the Lord. Neither did He. And yet He possessed
the Spirit in a way that we couldn't hope to ever possess it, in its
fullness and in its purity. Thirdly, His holy presence was
in their midst because god arranged it all my soul god sent him, isn't
that what he said? the spirit of god is upon me
because he sent me to preach you think about that oh, his
holy presence was in their midst because god arranged it ordained
it and brought it to pass. He was anointed and sent of God
to preach, to heal, to deliver, and to pardon, and to preach
the acceptable day of the Lord, and the day of the vengeance
of our God. And then let's take the remainder
of our time and look at what He did, and what we can talk
about without any hesitation, and what we can preach. First
of all, he was sent to preach the gospel to the poor. Now I'm
convinced it's not talking about poor folks out here who don't
have any money. Because there's a lot of rich
people that are poor in spirit. They're poor in spirit. And you
can be rich in money and yet a beggar in a spiritual sense,
and men are, they just don't know it. The church of the Laodiceans
over in Revelations, if you remember, I studied there, is a good example
of this. They said, we are rich and increased
with goods and have need of nothing. And our Lord said, and you don't
know that you're wretched and miserable and poor and blind
and naked. A rich man can be poor in spirit
and not know it. He came to preach to spiritual
beggars. poverty-stricken beggars in a
spiritual sense. Paul said, what have you gotten
that you haven't received? You got something that God didn't
give you? Huh? Oh, I worked for every penny
I got. Who gave you the job? Who gave
you the health to do the job? Who gave you the wisdom to know
how to do the job? What have you gotten that you
haven't received? I'm a self-made man. That's what
Nebuchadnezzar said just before God let him go out and feed with
the hogs and the sheep. What have we gotten that we haven't
received? And if we received it, why did
we act like we didn't? Why did we act like we did it?
Are we not at this very time having the gospel of Jesus Christ
proclaimed to us? Then this day, this scripture
is being fulfilled in your ears. Are we not at this very time
having the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed? Not a fallen angel
from glory, not the wisest of men, nor those who hold the greatest
offices in the world, but just a few bankrupt sinners gathered
together to hear the gospel. Isn't that something? Isn't that
something? Christ did all that he said he
would do. when he said, in the ages to
come, that he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, for by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God. Oh, I'm telling you, what a privilege
those people had on them that day, and what a privilege we
have today. Gathering ourselves together.
There was a time when I gathered together, but I didn't hear anything.
I didn't know anything. I was just doing a religious
dance with everybody else. Well, why are you doing that?
Well, because he does. And she does. I thought that's
what we're supposed to do. I didn't know any difference
until a man sat down and he said, I said, won't you come to the
revival with us tonight? And he said, why? Nobody ever
asked me that before in my life. Why? And I said, I don't know
what to say. I said, well, we got an evangelist
down there. I didn't know what an evangelist
was. But I said, we got an evangelist down here. He's preaching the
gospel. We want you to come hear him. He said, what's he preach? I said, what preaches the gospel?
He said, you wouldn't know the gospel if you met it in the middle
of the road. Boy, that kind of ruffled my
feathers a little bit. I said, what do you mean I don't
know? Well, he said, if you know it, what is it? And I couldn't tell him. And
for the first time in my life, I realized I didn't know what
I was talking about. I was just religious. I was just doing a religious
dance along with everybody else and didn't know. He preaches the gospel to the
poor. Poor in spirit, bankrupt. And
then he says, secondly, he said, God sent me to heal the brokenhearted. There's only one thing that can
heal a broken heart. A new heart. A new heart. Listen to this. And I'll tell you what I'm talking
about. I'm talking about a heart broken because of sin. Broken. Sin against light and
sin against law and sin against love. A broken heart. A heart's broken because of its
helplessness and its ignorance. And their heart's broken because
they love darkness rather than light. But listen to what our
Lord says here in Ezekiel 36. Verse 24. He said to them, he
said, I'm going to take you from among the heathen. You went over
there because that's where you wanted to be. You went over there
and you mixed with them after I told you not to, but you went
over there anyway if you're on the accord. And now look at you. Look at you. Idolaters. And he said, I'm going to take
you from among the heathen, and I'm going to gather you out of
all these countries, and I'm going to bring you into your
own land. And I'm going to sprinkle clean
water on you, and you'll be clean. When I get done washing you,
you're going to be clean. I'll tell you, I'm a filthy pig.
But when he washes you, you're clean. That's what he told his disciples.
He said, I've washed your feet, because your feet need washing.
You walk on them every day. They need washing. But he said,
you're clean every week. You've been washed. I'm going
to sprinkle clean water on you. And you'll be clean from all
your filthiness and from all your idols while I cleanse you.
And he said, a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit
will I put within you, and I'll take away that stony heart out
of your flesh, and I'll give you a heart of flesh. God hath sent me. That's what
our Lord said. Sitting there in their presence,
having read that scripture, he said, God sent me to heal the brokenhearted. And thirdly, he said to preach
deliverance to the captives. And then in Isaiah, he adds this,
the opening of the prison to them that are bound. I'm going to tell you something,
especially you young people that are here this morning. There's
more to salvation than just convincing men of a right doctrine. I want
you to know the right doctrine. I'm going to stand here and to
the best of my ability, I'm going to teach you a right doctrine.
I'm going to show you that doctrine in the Word of God. I'm going
to teach that doctrine to you and I want you to know it and
memorize it. Say it over and over and over
to yourself. But there's more to salvation
than convincing men of a right doctrine. There's more to conversion
than being buried in the pool and raised from the watery depths.
There's more to this thing of deliverance than just a feeling
of peace. Well, I just feel at peace. I do that after I eat Thanksgiving
dinner. But it doesn't do my soul any
good. Men are depraved. Do you believe
that? Men are depraved. What's that mean? That means
sin reigns. That's what that means. It rules. It reigns. It dictates your thoughts. It dictates your will. It dictates
everything you do. Men are depraved and sin reigns. Like legion, their person is
controlled by an evil presence which is beyond the ability of
any man to control. That wild man from Gadarine,
that Gadarine demoniac, there he was and he just cut himself
and ripped himself and they tried to do, they took big heavy ropes
and put them on him and fetters and tried to bind him and he
just bust them. And then they said, well we'll
get chains and they went down to Blacksmith and had some chains
made up and they went out and put the chains on him and he
just busted those chains. You think man ain't depraved?
You try to bind him. You can't bind him. You can't
do anything with him. I thought, well, man, when I
first heard this gospel, I thought I'd take this book and I'll just
turn over here and I'll read it for you. And then I'll go
over here and I'll read it for you over here. And boy, I can
teach men and I'll get them down one-on-one. They'll believe me
because I can show it to them in the Word of God. I'm going
to tell you something. You can't bind me. You can't
do it. There's only one who can do it,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And because He can do it, He
can preach it. And because He did do it, and
because He can do it, I can preach it. You see what I'm saying? Oh, our Lord says, of the souls
of depraved men, that a strong man armed keeps his palace and
keeps his goods at peace. He's armed. And if you wish to
spoil his house, you're going to have to go through him. That's
just so. And you can't do it. I can't
do it. He's armed with deceit and lies. He knows more about human nature
than anybody but God. He can tie you up in so many
knots. You can't do nothing with him.
He's the strong man. He reigns in his house. His house
is secure. His goods are at peace. He's
not threatened by men. He's not threatened by governments.
The city of Mansoul is a walled city, and a strongman arm lives
there and defends it. And natural weapons are useless.
They're just useless. And though we walk in the flesh,
Paul said, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of
our warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty through God. to
the pulling down of strongholds and casting down imaginations,
bringing every thought into obedience of Christ. As sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Because of who He is,
He can preach deliverance to the captives and the opening
of the prison door to those that are bound. And he could and he
did set at liberty them that are bruised. You know, for 120
years the Spirit of God in the preaching of Noah went out and
fell on the ears of men. And do you know what it said
of them? How he described those that Noah preached to? Spirits
in prison. That's exactly how they're described
in the book of Peter. Men and women whose minds and
hearts were held captive by a fallen nature and evil imagination spawned
by the evil woman. When Abraham knew that Lot was
taken captive, these four evil kings had come in to Sodom and
they took his nephew captive and they took those kings and
just spoiled the cities and took off with them. And when Abraham
heard what happened, he went up and he got 318 servants that
were born in his own house, many trusted in. And he went after
four kings with all their armies. And he divided his little group
up and came down at night and wiped them out. And got his nephew
back and took all the goods that they'd foiled and went back. Well, this is what gospel preaching
is. It's going where the enemy has
taken God's elect captive and getting them back. That's what
it is. He said, God sent me to do this. You got him bound, but I'm gonna
turn the key and I'm gonna loose him. You got him held captive,
but I'm gonna take him. Oh my soul, he went down into
Egypt, the most powerful country on the face of God's planet at
that time. And here's Israel, they had no
arms, they didn't have anything, they didn't have the will to
fight, they were oppressed by this king and God delivered them
without firing a shot or swinging a sword. Every one of them. And
when they left, the Egyptians gave them all the loot. They
gave them all their bounty. And he spoiled Egypt. He took
his elect from it and spoiled them and took all their goods
with him. And then when they left, God wouldn't even allow
a dog to bark in resistance. And they marched out of that
city. You see what I'm saying? Religion's
got it all upside down. They got men trying to deliver
themselves. He said, God sent me, sent me
to deliver the captives. And I can preach it because I'm
the deliverer. And I can preach it because he's
the deliverer. My soul, if it was all up to
me, I wouldn't even get up here. I'd just stayed home. but it's all on him and he's
able. And I'll tell you something else,
God's servants aren't afraid to go into Pharaoh's house and
look him in the eye and tell him what God said. When they're
convinced God's with them, God sent me, God's with me, just
as Moses was, you can march right into Pharaoh's house, right into
his palace, look him right in the face and say, God said, let
my people go. God's servants aren't afraid
of religion's high councils or their political connections nor
their massive numbers because they're God's servants. People were out there talking
about John the Baptist. Man, he's hard. You see what
he said to them Pharisees? Man, he put them Pharisees on
the scoops. He told them, he said, you vipers,
who warned you to flee? the wrath of God. Now you go
back and you bring meat for repentance. You come back and then we'll
talk about baptism. Man, he's hard. He ain't like
them guys down there in the synagogues. Talking about John the Baptist.
And the Lord said, well what did you go out to see? A reed
shaking in the wind? Is that what you thought preachers
were? Preachers don't get ulcers, they
give them. What do you go out to see? What
do you think you're going to hear? Three ladies come in here
one day to visit. Man, I'm telling you, as soon
as I sat down before we ever got to sing, they were gone like
a shot out that door. They were shocked at what they
heard. I could say to them what our
Lord said, what do you go out to see? What do you think you're
going to hear? You think you're going to see
a reed shaking in the wind? You thought you were going to
see somebody dressed in soft raiment? Somebody afraid of what
you were going to say or how you were going to react? What
did you go out to hear? Did you go out to hear from God
or did you go out there to hear a man entertain you for a little
bit? He said, this is he of whom it's
written, behold, I send my messenger before my face. before thy face
and what that saying there is in your face. That's what that's
saying. Now watch this. And from the days of John the
Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffered violence and
the violent take it by force. Salvation, my friend, is God
assaulting the strong man's house. That's what it is. Taking away
his reign and taking the house for himself. And if God ever takes over your
soul, that's exactly what's going to happen. All of a sudden, preaching
is not going to come in word only. It's going to come in power.
And when it does, those knees will bow and that tongue will
confess. You know why? Because God assaulted
the strongman's house. That's why. I'm not talking about violence
like the violence of Romanism as it was established in Mexico
years ago by the conquistadors. They established religious stronghold
down there with the sword. But in gospel preaching by the
power and presence of the Holy Ghost. And in the days of Paul,
Rome ruled that part of the world. They'd already crucified Christ
and taken the head of John the Baptist, but Paul said, as much
as in me is. Listen to this. I'm ready to
preach to you there in Rome. I'm ready to preach to you also. I'm telling you gospel preaching
is the only weapon fierce enough to slay the giant who defies
the armies of the living God. It's the gospel. Now he said
you get your armor on and you take to you the sword. It's the only weapon powerful
enough to bring him down. And our Lord could preach such
a gospel because he could and did accomplish a salvation That
salvation of God, which God had promised, and now sits at the
right hand of God, assuring us of the sure success of His gospel. His gospel is effectual. It's effectual. It's effectual
either way. He said it always smells good
to God. Always does. And it'll be a warning to you,
or it'll be a blessing to you. But either way, God gonna be
glorified. Now, isn't that the purpose of
this little assembly here? Huh? Isn't that why we're still
here? Is that not what we've been gathered
together here to do? And is this not the work needed
in the hearts of sinners? But for Christ and his gospel,
that poor Samaritan woman would have kept coming out to the well
after everybody else had left and quietly drawing up the water
out of that well and drinking it. And she'd have went on to
judgment doing that very thing. But the Lord said, no, you're
not. And he went to her, and he preached to her. And he gave
her that living water that become a well of water in her, springing
up into everlasting life. But for Christ and his gospel,
what would have become of the Gadarene demoniac? He'd have
lived out his days in misery, being possessed by an uncontrollable
power. But see him now, dressed and
sitting in his right mind and talking with the Lord. Huh? My friend, there's only one hope
for you and I, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. God has sent
Him. God has anointed Him, given Him
all power in heaven and earth. And then He said to His disciples,
God has given me all power in heaven and earth. Now you go
preach. I preached because I'm able to accomplish it. And now
I have accomplished it. And I still have that power.
Now you go preach. You go preach. God helped me to preach him as
he meant to be preached. And for you to hear him as he
meant to be heard. And then let me close with this,
Luke 4 verse 19. To preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. What on earth does that mean?
It means the time which God decreed and purposed and fixed from all
eternity for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish
the redemption of His people. That's what that means. It means
that blessed appearance of the God-man mediator to reconcile
all things to Himself. To put away all the sins of those
given to Him by the Father and clothe them with His perfect
righteousness. and then to rise for them from the dead, to declare
them fully justified before God, and to rise and be seated in
heaven to intercede for them in glory. To preach the acceptable
year of the Lord is to preach the year of our acceptance to
God. We are accepted in the blood. And do you know what the acceptable
year of the Lord literally translated means? the year of Jubilee. All debts are cancelled. All
your inheritance fully restored. All reconciled to God completely. And our Lord closed the book
And handed it back to the minister and he sat down and he said,
this day is a scripture fulfilled in your ears. And perhaps the
most unbelievable thing of all of this is that while he sat
there in their midst, having said all these glorious things
to them, they looked at him and they said, ain't that Joseph's son? He's just a carpenter. He's just
a carpenter. And our Lord said to them, it'll
be easier for them, the judgment will be easier on them of Sodom
and Gomorrah than it's gonna be on you. Because of what you've
seen, and who you've seen, and what he preached, and what you
threw on the ground. It'll be worse. And I'm telling
you this, he said the same thing to those 70 that he sent out
to preach for him. He said, those that won't hear
you, it'll be easier on those in judgment from Sodom and Gomorrah
than it's gonna be on you.